A Broken Man
by stefandiedforcaroline
Summary: James Buchanan Barnes. Bucky Barnes. The Winter Soldier. He doesn't know who he is anymore, but as the memories flood back, he's not even sure he wants to know anymore. Spoilers for The Winter Soldier.


The nightmares are the worst part. His nights spent in the sparsely furnished room, clutching the sheets, gasping for air the same way he always did when pulled from cryogenic freezing- it's almost like an asthma attack, but he doesn't personally know what those are like. He's never had asthma. (_But __**he**__ did._) And it all does come back to him, but it's in flashes, broken imagery that leaves his frozen heart cracking under the pressure. Assassins aren't supposed to sob, but he does, heart-wrenching sobs that echo a pain he doesn't understand. He's the Winter Soldier. He's not supposed to feel. Emotions will interfere, they zapped his mind enough to delete that bit of programming from his hard drive, so to speak. He thought they fixed that design flaw.

But he's human, and humans are, at their core, the flaws of their design.

Cybernetic arm or no, humanity is clutching at his throat, ready to rip it open and bare his vulnerabilities for this new world to see. His blood is still red, the self-same color that's stained his armor and his face and his hair so many times he's lost count. Not always his, because until- (_until he saw __**him**__ again_)- recently, he'd forgotten that he bleeds. Weapons aren't supposed to bleed, and that's what he is, a weapon for the neo-Nazi group known as HYDRA, that's _all_ he is, dammit. But HYDRA is gone, and if HYDRA doesn't exist, his purpose is gone. He is a purposeless piece of machinery that cries in the night because the memories are painful, and conditioned to handle physical pain he might be, but emotional? No.

He knows he was born in Brooklyn. At first, it's confusing. Weapons aren't born, they're created, formed from hours of unending work and blood and sweat, but while blood and sweat most assuredly had a hand in his creation, he was not made in a lab. He was conceived in a womb, he was nurtured in this womb, and he was _born_, yes, _born_ in a hospital. Then, his name was not Winter Soldier. He can hear it in his memories, but at the same time, it's out of reach. (_He wonders if it's the name __**he**__ told him about._) A foreign language. Dulcet tones that he's not accustomed to hearing taint the memories and leave him more confused than before.

When they begin, he smashes the single window in the apartment. Punches a hole through the wall. This confusion is like a poison, and it makes him _angry_, and he hates it more than he hates not knowing. At least, that's what he tells himself. There's good reason this apartment has barely anything in it now. He's destroyed it more than once, and he's tired of cleaning up the mess- then again, he's always tired, now. Because before, he didn't know dreams, and now that he does, the lack of the endless void once found in sleep leaves him exhausted and temperamental. He doesn't understand why the dreams insist on coming now, of all times.

Humanity is undoing him, and there's nobody to fix it. Fix _him_.

A night comes that's filled with visions of two fists, both normal, neither mechanical, making contact with a nose, a jaw- and then those fists uncurling into bloodstained hands, haggard breaths escaping his dream self when he kneels next to a wiry, pathetic-looking boy. That's when the hands turn gentle, wiping blood away, one clasping the feeble boy's shoulder, and he hears some strange mockery of his voice asking if the boy's alright. _"I'm fine, Bucky. Had 'em on the ropes."_ The voice is familiar, even though it isn't his, and it jolts him from the dream drenched in sweat, with tears tracking down his cheeks. For days, that voice and those words echo in his mind, leaving him restless and plagued by something he can't place a name to.

Howard Stark. The name shouldn't rise up in his dreams, but it does. It isn't a memory of killing the man and his wife. It isn't recognition of the fact that he so skillfully made it all look like an accident- not by a long shot. It's wide eyes taking in a _flying_ car, those self-same eyes skipping over the two women in front of him and resting on the wiry boy from before. Except now, he isn't a boy, he's taller, and he isn't bloody. He's just distant. He can feel the expectant curve of his lips as he glances between Stark's innovative invention and his friend- and as the word rises in the dream, in his mind, permeating the haze of it all, he jerks back to awareness, the word breaking past his lips in a whisper that's both awed and pained.

Relief comes in the weeks after, if it can be called that. He doesn't dream of the (_friend_) boy, he dreams of a table, of straps pinning him down, of screams of agony and cold barrels and pain and injections. He dreams of hopelessness, and somehow, the 'new' emotion is more familiar than any other. For some strange reason, these dreams are comfort. They feel like birth. Weakness, agony, he doesn't care. He holds to it. This is memory of physical pain and he's fine with that, because he can handle it, even if his heart still jerks violently in his chest every time he pulls from the dreams. The ice encasing the muscle returns, but it's thin, fragile. Easily broken. He learns as much when, one night, the dream takes an unexpected turn.

It's the boy, but then, it isn't. He doesn't understand how he knows, doesn't understand how this suddenly muscle-bound figure factors into the torment, but what causes inexplicable relief in his dreams turns into anguish when he wakes. The boy- the man- he's his savior. He pulls him from hell and it leaves him curled in a tight ball in his bed, clutching his pillow to his chest and gasping for air as though he's never breathed before. A name has stuck, a name that won't leave his mind, and the name does no less than completely unthaw his heart and shatter it. _Steve._ Like some twisted mantra, the name repeats in his mind as his waking hours tick by, a strange form of self-flagellation if there ever was one.

Steve was his friend, before.

His next dreams revolve around a revolution. Uniforms. Battles. Triumph and glee and victory- and then, a train. This is the dream that leaves him scrambling for a foothold on reality. Lifting a shield much too heavy for him to handle. His eyes flickering to the man so much like a brother, because that much is clear, Steve is not just a friend, he's _the_ friend, he's _family_- a silent goodbye. He doesn't want to die, but he can't let Steve die, and it's a toss-up, it leaves him straining and trembling and terrified but _God damn it all_ when that shot hits the shield and he goes flying, he doesn't regret it. Doesn't even regret it as the memory of the frost-bitten railing of the train slipping from his grasp brings a glimpse of the last happiness he knew- happiness and sadness. Ache and accomplishment. All emotion after is resignation, confusion, and then, fear.

And the pieces are falling together prettily now, but it scares him. He begins to avoid sleep, push himself to the limits until he collapses in exhaustion and drowns in the pain. This is physical pain, but it isn't the worst. The worst is how his humanity is flayed away. The fall should have killed him, but it didn't, and before long, he moves from the hands of those who saved him to the hands of HYDRA. Their tests have made him more durable, and are the reason he survived the fall, but oh, it isn't over. Will it ever be? Freezing, unfreezing, injecting, screaming, beating, spitting, cursing, re-design of an arm that feels wrong because it isn't _his_ arm until, one day, it is. This is hell. He's submerged in hell every damn time he falls asleep now, and it's like he's watching a depressing movie about a man becoming nothing.

But that's what he is now. It's what they've made him. Faults and flaws are hacked away at in his mind's eye until he is the soldier they need, the assassin they prize above all other assets. He kills, and they're pleased. In the then, his dream self feels no remorse. In the now, he cannot stay neutral. Self-loathing rises like bile in his throat, but it doesn't stop, and _God_, how many people has he killed? How much blood stains his hands? He wants to throw himself into the ocean and sink into nothingness. He wants to put a gun in his mouth and blast away all remnants of whatever it is he's become, but he can't, because this suffering, this _hell_, is what he deserves.

New York City. Another war, claims by his 'commander' that his work is for the good of humanity- and this dream is the worst. (_When he sees __**him**__, he doesn't know it, but he cries out in desperation, even in his sleep._) Seeing Steve. Hearing his name. Not knowing, and yet, his current self _does_ know and he wants to scream, wants to force his dream self to wake up and remember. He shouldn't be fighting Steve, Captain America, fuck it all, he'll always- no. He _was_ always Steve, in the before. He watches through his own eyes and wants to claw at his dream self's mind until the memories bleed through, but it's useless, because they wipe his memory again the moment they realize he remembers something. The Winter Soldier isn't allowed to remember anything.

And then, the final dream. The fight. Steve pleading for him to listen. The beginning of the end- the last thing he knows, from before the now, the torment, the hell. At least his dream self is reaching a point of knowing, because he wants Steve to fight back, wants him to win, to kill him, but Steve refuses, in the end. He won't fight him. Says he's with him to the end, and damn it all, he can't force himself to let Steve drown- in the end, _he can't ignore his humanity._ Because it's his friend that reawakens it, and seeing it through the haze of a dream somehow makes that clearer. It's why he pulls the man from the water, why he makes sure he doesn't drown before vanishing.

When he awakens, this last time, he somehow knows that the dream will be the one on repeat for the rest of his existence. His mistakes will be laid out before him and he will remember them for all of eternity. It's what he deserves. After stumbling away, incoherent, that day, something shifted, something happened, and he knows that. He can't explain why he's gone through all of _this_ any other way. But as he drags himself to the bathroom, stares through bleary, swollen eyes bloodshot from tears at his reflection, he can't say it's undeserved. If this is hell, there's no place more fitting for him.

Taking a shaking breath, he tries to blink away a fresh round of tears, his hoarse voice testing out words that, amazingly enough, don't ring true. _"I am the Winter Soldier. I am a weapon."_ He clears his throat. Tries again. _"I'm James Buchanan Barnes. I'm a soldier."_ Wrong. His left hand curls until the sink crackles under his grasp, and he's left glaring at himself. He doesn't even know if this stupid little... whatever it is, if it matters. He severely doubts it does, but some part of him is still confused, a lot of him is still confused, and he has to know. Can't go on without knowing, and so, he tries one last time.

_"My name... is Bucky Barnes. I don't know what I am anymore."_

It's sad, how very true that last statement is.


End file.
